Monday, July 30, 2018

A Love of Color: Nature in Purest Form



This series started with blue jay feathers-the blues were so rich against a gray background. In our busy lives we often ignore the simple things and when our eyes open to the beauty and simplicity of color and texture more of our soul comes to life.

This clarity and consciousness of form and color is where the artist lives. A sensitivity to colors that create mood and texture, we creatives are vessels that the outside world works through to become a force.

If our eyes and our souls are awake and alive we suddenly start to notice every richness of nature that is present in everyday life.



The flower is usually realized when it is first born, that first spectacular bloom but the colors change and often even intensify even after the bloom has gone past its initial purpose. Quite suddenly images in the neighborhood began to appear as obvious as watching the spectacle of a sunset.





Plants discarded in the alley become rich colorful works of art. The cools of purple jumping out of the warmth of dead leaves, it is an amazing experience when the mundane becomes something more beautiful and that is the job of a creative, to find and create something beautiful from the ordinary.





Friday, July 27, 2018

Third and Final in Series: The Swallows



The first painting is calle the painbirds. I got the idea from Sparklehorse-Good Morning Spider and added the passionvine because they are symbolic in much of my writing, I also collect them.

The lake is a simplified Lake Ray Hubbard and most of the focus was on the bridge and the storm in the distance. This painting started in my house in Sachse and sat on the easel, as many paintings do, for more than a year.

I finally finished it in a day in 2016 I think. Immediately following this painting was the Swallows in Sunset, not much to tell although I think the water area is from a scene in Florida. The same process, it started out on my easel and stayed unfinished for several months.




The next painting is finally completed. It is called the Celebration, it was inspired by watching Lake Ray Hubbard finally fill again. It was after the drought and the swallows were all around the bridge in celebration. I started it in 2016 or so and never finished it until just yesterday afternoon.

The problem with getting attached with a painting in the beginning stages is you lose confidence to go beyond your original feeling of success. It is part of my series of water studies, getting back to the basics of water and why I started painting it in the first place.

It is the smallest of the three paintings and has the most swallows. The bridge with all the nesting swallows was further inspired by a trip to North Sulphur river where the swallows were flying around the bridge and many were even swarming picking up the mud to create their nests.